Ella's Dedication

Today Ella was dedicated to God formally in church. Of course, I feel like I gave up control over her and dedicated her to God before she was even born, but it was a sacred time of publicly acknowledging that she is God's and not ours. A big thanks to Randy and Michael for praying with us.

Then we had lunch with some friends and family and asked them to write down traits of a Godly woman on a rock. Then we put all the rocks in a vase that we will have Ella keep forever and she can read the rocks to teach and remind her of what it means to be a Godly woman. Bea had a great post about it on her blog. Check it out here.

The service in church today was incredible. I will post more on that later. I was proud of our church today.

Falling Asleep While Praying

I loved this quote from a Dominican Catholic priest about falling asleep in prayer - something we all do and probably feel guilty about.

"The Lord doesn't mind," Goedert said. "If you're holding a newborn baby in your arms and it falls asleep, are you going to love it any less?"
Rev. Robert Goedert, a Dominican priest in Chicago

I think that's a beautiful thought? Agree? Disagree?

Choose to Wait

I just got back from an all-day training on how to teach Choose to Wait classes in Kenya this summer. That's just a part of what we will be doing, but it should be an ideal way to help and to share Christ with people. The African people are showered with lies about sex and AIDS by their parents, older siblings, and even government leaders. Women are essentially "sold" by their parents to a man to be his wife and therefore the man acts as if he owns her rather than loving her as Christ loves the church. Government leaders have said that if you have sex with a virgin you will be cured of AIDS. People are not valued as being created in God's image so they can be exploited completely.

We learned how to communicate God's design for them and God's value for them through Genesis 1-3. It is essentially abstinence training with teaching about God all wrapped into one. It was a bit long and so the high school students (and myself) got a bit bored after a while, but it was a good foundation to build our planning upon. We will be teaching this content at schools, orphanages, and youth jails.

God on the Web

Again, from The Week...

The number of Web pages dealing with God and religion is booming. Religion, in fact, is now nearly as popular an Internet topic as sex: A search for "sex" on Google returns about 408 million hits; a search for "God" yields 396 million.

The Washington Post

Cool, huh?

I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 01

Have you seen these classic videos from Community Christian Church. The link is for their store where you can buy High-Res versions. They tackle some of the superficiality of being a Christian. I will post the rest coming soon. Funny stuff!

An Open Letter to All "Crusades"

To:
Campus Crusade for Christ
Billy Graham Crusade
Harvest Crusade

Can you please stop using the term "crusade?" Why would you want to use a term that references the use of war and murder to spread the gospel? I strongly believe that your organizations would continue to thrive and produce much fruit with a different title. There are many possibilities like "Campus Cause for Christ" or just "Campus for Christ." The term festival or something like that could be used for Harvest and Billy Graham. The negative connotations simply aren't worth whatever positives the organizations see in the names.

For a brief, non-scholary description of the Crusades. Check this wikipedia.

The quote below is from Campus Crusade from their website explaining why they still use the term crusade. It seems like a cop-out to me. They say that in recent years the world's sensitization to the beliefs of Islam make the term crusade negative. Uhhh...how about the Christians murdering the Islams in the name of Jesus throughout the Middle Ages. I must add that I was involved with Campus Crusade in college at UCSB and I experienced some of the most important spiritual growth and challenge in my entire life. I believe in their cause, just not their name.

When this occured, the word "crusade" was used, especially within American Christianity, to denote a "movement or cause." The word did not carry the weight it does now in light of events in recent years, and the world's sensitization to the beliefs of Islam.

There has been debate concerning the impact of our name and the impression it may eilicit. At first it might seem a simple decision to change the name of our organization. However, because we are a worldwide organization with more than 25,000 staff present in more than 196 countries, the scope and impact of such a change would be massive and quite costly.

Franklin Graham calls his version a Franklin Graham Festival. I appreciate his change in terms. I'm sure he is still able to have the same impact - if not more. He was even willing to abandon the name that his father made so famous - The Billy Graham Crusade. Franklin could have thought that he should keep it for marketing reasons like Campus Crusade for Christ, but he was willing to change despite the conveniency. I applaud that.

So please change your name and help all Christians show that we are not seeking to murder the infidels, but share with them the redemptive story of Jesus Christ which offers love, peace, and forgiveness.

Thank you,

Eric Wakeling

Post-Preach Exhaustion

I spoke this morning in our Elevation service and I'm feeling the afternoon exhaustion of preaching. I only have to do one service and I go home super tired. Somebody told me once that 15 minutes of public speaking equals an 8 hour day worth of energy. I only spoke for 35 minutes so that's about 17 or 18 hours, plus the other 4 hours I worked today. So that's about 21-22 hours. No wonder I'm tired. Imagine doing three or four services like some churches.

I taught on serving God for His glory and not our own - from Matthew 20:20-28. I mentioned the weird parts of preaching where you sometimes feel like you are doing it for the accolades and positive comments from people. So it was funny to see how people responded to me afterwards. Some joked and said, "Eric - you were awesome. It's all about you." One Jr High girl said "Good job this morning" and then she said, "Oh wait, I mean, God spoke through you today." It was cute to see her catch herself. I also got an email from someone that said, "Glory job," instead of "good job." That was creative.

Any thoughts on either topic from people in ministry or other fields where this applies???

Darfur is Dying

I saw this for the first time on Marko's blog and it is a very cool thing that can help students and yourself and myself be more aware of what is going on in Africa, but specifically Sudan. I plan to use this with my Kenya team - fo sho!

So check it out here - Darfur is Dying.

Day Away

So our VantagePoint3 group at church went on a spiritual retreat day today and it was great. There are 10 of us and we grabbed some Starbucks and went down to the Dana Point Harbor and talked about a poem that led us into a two hour solo time where we could pray, practice the Prayer of Examen, and just spend time with God in whatever way we wanted to. It was a beautiful day. I had a great time of prayer and listening. Then I listened to the Bible Experience. The book of Philippians twice and several chapters of the gospel of John. Then we went to lunch at John's Fish Market. Then we went to the park up by the Laguna Cliffs Marriott where some played football and some painted and chatted for a bit. Then we talked about our Benner book - The Gift of Being Yourself. Then we did some funny team-building initiatives. After that we discussed our VP3 manual, but mostly just talked about one question that had to do with our family upbringing and any spiritual upbringing we had and how that affects our emergence as leaders. Finally we had dinner at El Molino do Oro, a little authentic Mexican place in San Juan Capistrano.

A great day. I'm tired from thought, discussion, football, and being in the sun. Awesome.

Ghandi

Amazing. Astonishing. Inspiring. I just finished watching the 1982 Best Picture winning film Ghandi with Best Actor winning Ben Kingsley in the title role.

He changed a nation and defeated the British Empire through peace. He would spin thread to make cloth, built his own home, and fasted to the point of starvation to make the world see. I loved when he said that something like "I have never advocated being passive. We will be very aggressive through non-violent non-cooperation."

I want to be aggressive in such a way that is radical, but isn't full of bitterness or anger or judgmentalism. I want to live simply and be true to what God has called me. Maybe it's time for a change in me, but I'm just not sure what exactly. Sometimes I want to change the world, but I don't even spend two hours a week hanging out with the homeless or something like that.

I have that feeling where you are frustratingly inspired. What do you do with that?

Live Simply

I'm feeling bad about my covetous post about the iPhone because I wrote on a rock that is a witness against me about trying to live simply this year. It was during an Elevation service where we were making commitments to God and the rock would help us remember like with Joshua and the Israelites at the very end of the book of Joshua.

Now, I'm not sure if this means I will never get an iPhone, but it does mean that I need to stop being so swayed by every gadget and gizmo that I think is cool because there is a part of me that thinks I actually "need" those things.

Preaching Yesterday and the New Year

I preached yesterday in our one-service Sunday which means there was probably close to 2,000 people. It's kind of crazy, but fun to speak to that kind of crowd. There was pretty good energy in the room to start. Victor led worship too. It was an Elevation style service but with the older crowd as well. I think everyone seemed to connect well with it which is good because there have been some critical people. I'm sure it was a bit loud for some, but hopefully they were able to see beyond volume.

I preached on a topic I really liked that I talked about in this post a week ago or so. I basically told them about who Jesus is now and and in the future according to John's description in Revelation 1 and from some OT prophecies. And then I challenged them to worship with "every ounce of passion in their very being" and it was a pretty good response. Especially with many people over 60 in the crowd.

I was pretty tired yesterday. We just took it easy and hung out with some friends named the Dahlke's who live around the corner and let the kids play and got CPK takeout. Watched the ball drop, played a really (unfortunately) lame 24 DVD-based board game, and gave my wife a smooch at mid-night.

Life out of Nothing

I know this kind of image can be a bit over-used in Christian circles, but I still love the imagery. My life has felt pretty desolate at times, even recent times, and I know that God has been bringing life out of that crappiness, but I feel like this image helps me see how God makes something new even in the midst of our brokenness, emptyness, and hurt. This whole pregnancy feels like such a huge blessing of God allowing life to blossom after a period where we truly felt like it could never happen. God broke us and re-shaped us through that trial and then decided to bless us after the lesson was learned. It almost showed me how much more He is in control through the blessing. I thought I had Him figured out near the end of the trial. "Oh, God wanted to teach me patience, surrender, expectation, and worship. That's why we can't have a baby." Then, BOOM, God shows He is stil in control by giving us the blessing we wanted all along. I didn't expect that.



Thanks to Aaron LeBrun for the photo. http://alebrun.blogspot.com/

Jesus is My Homeboy...errr...HERO!!

So I'm preaching in a one-service Sunday on December 31st at my church which means that both the Celebration and Elevation services meet together as one. Victor is leading worship and I'm speaking so it will be sort of a Elevation hosts the church kinda thing with stations and all that jazz. I'm preaching on Revelation 1:12-18 where Jesus is described by John. John describes him with these things:
A. Long Robe and Golden Sash - to signify a kingly priest
B. White Head and Hair like wool and snow - pure and eternal
C. Blazing Eyes like fire - all searching, judging, penetrating
D. Feet like burning bronze - judgment - bare feet were required by priests before offering at the bronze altar
E. Voice like Many Waters - powerful
F. Stars in His Right Hand - controls the angels and churches
G. Sword in His Mouth - The Word converts and convicts
H. Face like the Sun - Greek gods were portrayed as suns or shining like suns, God is taking that back. This was at the transfiguration too.

That God is intense, powerful, majestic, strong, and freaking AWESOME!! We don't pray to the baby Jesus or to some weaksauce Jesus. He is our friend, but not our homeboy. He rules!!

John fell on his face as if dead. I say we worship like that.